From: Scott Badger (wbadger@psyberlink.net)
Date: Fri Jul 03 1998 - 08:58:46 MDT
From: davelook <davelook@gsinet.net> wrote:
>>> What exactly makes something unethical is *your* opinion of the act,
>>>even tho
>>>I may feel it to be an ethical act.
>>> Ethics and morals are totally subjective.
>>>
>>>Dave L.
>>>
>>
>>>Ethics is not my field but I was never of the opinion that something is
>>unethical because *you* perceive it to be. *** I always thought the acid
>test
>>boiled down to whether you were doing harm to another person or not.***
>
> That itself is a subjective judgement.
>
>>And not harm as you may narrowly interpret it, but harm as perceived by
the
>>victim of your actions (or inactions).
>
> The victim and you may have very different opinions of an act.
>If you prefer to say that the victim should decide the ethics of an act,
>fine by
>me. But you'd probably disagree once in awhile, in which case, who is
>"right", you or the victim?
>
>Dave L.
>
Yes, a better response to your original statement is that ethics are
generally defined to be the rules of conduct (or the moral percepts) of a
particular culture or group, and as such are understandably subjective.
Individuals *can*, of course, have a code of ethics separate from the group,
but when there is disagreement between two individuals' ethics, the most
reasonable course is to make a judgement based on consensual ethical
standards. In other words, whether harm was done must ultimately be left up
to a jury of your peers. A sociopath can't be allowed to harm whoever s/he
wishes simply because s/he has a *different* set of ethical standards.
Likewise, a chronic *victim* cannot be allowed to gain by unfairly accusing
others of harming them. Both individuals may be acting ethically from their
frame of reference, but to use a phrase I've hear often lately... So what?
Ethical standards have little meaning if they are confined to the individual
level. Anyway I still disagree with your original assertion at the top of
this post:
S.B.
Got get me a snappy little byline, too.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 14:49:16 MST